Root with no password

[Joseph Norton]

In the earlier versions of the Slackware live cd (now, I believe it's 
called slax), there used to be a root and guest account which required no 
password.  I know I can set my password to nothing, but, the system still 
prompts for one and I have to press enter.  How did the slackware folks do 
it.
Also, how successful am I likely to be trying to build slax with a 2.6 
kernel with Speakup enabled since it doesn't look like the maintainer of 
Slax has done this yet?

Thanks!